APPLES 
Peas (pisum sativum) 
Poppy 
Potatoes 
Rape 
Rice 
Rye 
Seradella 
Sojy bean 
Sugar cane 
Sorghum (sorghum saccharatum) 
Sugar beet (beet-root) 
Tobacco 
Vetch (visia sativa) 
Wheat 
Cover Crops as Adapted to Missouri 
Soils 
Cover crops are highly essential to the 
present success of the orchard, but espec- 
ially to its future success—the lack of it 
may explain failure. 
The more we learn of cover crops the 
more we appreciate their importance. We 
have had more or less experience in our 
plants in Missouri and other states. We 
have observed the cover crops used in 
the peach orchards of Georgia and other 
southern states, of the Lake Shore country 
of New York, of Michigan, Ohio, Mary- 
land, Delaware, etc., and throughout our 
own state and particularly the cover crops 
—and too often the lack of them—in the 
West and Northwest. We often hear the 
orchardists explain that we don’t get the 
crops of the old times when this was a 
virgin country. To repeat such crops 
one essential is to put the soil in as near 
the fertile condition it was following the 
removal of the forests. The mineral ele- 
ments of the soil remain but the humus 
has been “burned out.” Too many or- 
chards are starving, actually starving— 
and especially is this true of our Ozark 
regions. 
We have heard the advocation of weeds 
as a cover crop. Perchance weeds may 
be better than nothing, but is that good, 
up-to-date teaching? 
The average soil on chemical analysis 
Shows a fair to a large amount of potash, 
phosphate and other necessary elements. 
It is not a question of buying a carload 
of fertilizer and wondering if it will pay. 
Commercial fertilizer may pay and often 
does; and it is sometimes necessary when 
the soil has been worn out but where 
249 
1538 39 69 
87 30 87 
119 D5 192 
154 19 124 
39 24 45 
87 44 76 
128 D7 196 
297 62 87 
D18 37 107 
446 90 561 
95 44 200 
127 32 148 
149 35 113 
111 45 58 
soil contains the necessary minerals, and 
the air the necessary nitrogen, the ques- 
tion should be only one of making use 
of what you already have, by putting it 
into an available form, and not of buying 
a few tons of fertilizer. The nitrogen 
will be supplied from the atmosphere by 
the leguminous crops. The organic mat- 
ter which is also added by these legumi- 
nous crops tends to make the mineral of 
the soil more available, and with proper 
management most soils will furnish all 
-the necessary potash, etc. A little green 
manure should be added every year, 
which will increase the nitrogen. This 
is the cheapest method as it can be done 
by means of cover and catch crops at the 
end of the growing season when other 
crops have been removed. 
Where any cover crop or manure is 
turned under, it forms humus, which 
makes the soil darker, and by test it 
has been shown that a dark soil is some 
degrees warmer than the same soil when 
lighter in color, when under the same con- 
ditions. 
Humus in the soil makes it act like a 
sponge. It makes the soil more porous 
and able to hold more water and retain 
it longer. It makes a stiff clay soil of 
lighter tilth by separating and loosening 
the soil particles rendering cultivation 
easier. 
There are a number of bacteria work- 
ing in the soil. They must all have food, 
and the beneficial ones are dependent, 
more or less, on humus and the decaying 
organic matter from which it is formed. 
When these bacteria work, or “digest” 
the humus, they set free carbon dioxide. 
The carbon dioxide is a gas which is 
